Budget Cuts Also Paint Grim Picture for Valley : Spending: In addition to publicized health care and jail reductions, swift-water rescue operations and libraries will be affected.

Los Angeles County budget cuts proposed Friday would force libraries in the San Fernando and surrounding valleys to stop buying books, firefighters to stop fighting fires, hospitals to stop treating patients and jailers to stop jailing convicts.

The grim picture was outlined in the county’s annual revenue and spending plan, which calls for more than $1.6 billion in cuts in nearly every service and department, and for trimming the work force by more than 9,500.

In addition to the highly publicized cuts in jails and fire protection, the county’s budget calls for the curtailment of everything from niceties like nature hikes to necessities like swift-water rescues.

“This budget is not going to be pleasant to implement,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents most of the San Fernando Valley. “How do we justify this kind of budget curtailment? I certainly can’t justify it.”

No community escaped the budget knife, but northern Los Angeles County suburbs may not bleed as heavily as other areas because residents generally are less dependent on county programs and because other public agencies may be willing to step in and take up the slack.

“County government is an invisible service to the middle class,” Chief Administrative Officer Harry L. Hufford said. “These are services you do not want, but would like to have available to protect an organized society.”

Demonstrating how local agencies are filling potential voids left by a receding county bureaucracy, Calabasas officials are discussing taking over maintenance of Gates Canyon Park in order to prevent it from closing.

“It’s either we take it over or they will close everything down and lock it up,” Calabasas Mayor Marvin Lopata said. “They’re not giving us much of a choice. It’s a beautiful park.”

Not every cut is so easily healed.

Among proposals to slash the Department of Health Services budget is a plan to shut down Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar, which would force poor patients to travel long distancesoften on public transportationfor treatment. And remaining hospitals would be so overburdened that already long waits would increase even more.

“The reality is we are going to have incredibly long waiting lines,” said Don Petite, controller for the health department. He added that it may take up to six months for a patient to get an appointment.

Local health centers are designed to provide day-to-day care, but those also face budget cuts of up to one-third. Centers in Canoga Park, North Hollywood, San Fernando and Van Nuys all face cuts.

“Any cut in health care is extremely bad for the general public,” said Dr. Lucia Carpenter, director of the Canoga Park Health Center, which provides care to nearly 3,000 patients a month. “It’s just a terrible thing.”

No less terrible in David Flint’s mind is the curtailment of library services across northern Los Angeles County. Flint is the chief of administrative services for the county’s 127 libraries.

Although no branches are scheduled to close in northern suburbs, bookmobile service in the Antelope Valley and the Las Virgenes area will be eliminated. All libraries will cut their hours by at least half and no new books, magazines or newspapers will be ordered.

“We will buy periodical indexes so we can find out what we aren’t buying,” Flint said, adding that the library system is actively seeking donations of books and other materials.

But, he explained, that sort of program tends to work better in more affluent areas, where residents have more money to spend on magazine and newspaper subscriptions. “One of the sad side-effects,” Flint said, “is the different abilities of different communities to provide gifts.”

Law enforcement cuts, publicized by Sheriff Sherman Block and others, call for the closure of up to four jailsincluding Mira Loma in the Antelope Valley and two facilities at the Pitchess Honor Rancho in Sauguswhich would put as many as 12,000 inmates on the street.

And as many as 251 of the prosecutors countywide who put criminals behind bars face layoffs. The district attorney’s office in the Newhall Municipal Court is one of 13 countywide slated for closure, spokesman John Bernardi said.

Added to that, a proposed 5% cut in patrol service would increase response time in unincorporated areas of the county, including much of the Las Virgenes area and the mountainous regions between the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

“We already live in a climate of fear,” Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Springs said. “And now we are looking at the breakdown of the criminal justice system. Added to that level of fear that already exists, I think it’s going to be very disturbing.”

Rescue services, including the sheriff’s Air 5 helicopter and swift-water rescue team, also take hits in the budget, requiring already overburdened city and county fire departments to transport the sick and injured from remote areas.

Not that the county fire department has much to spare. Chief P. Michael Freeman said he expects to close 41 of 127 stations, including seven in mountain and desert areas ringing the San Fernando Valley.

Freeman said closures in Calabasas, Palmdale, San Fernando and Stevenson Ranch will mean it takes longer for fewer firefighters to get where they are needed.

“It’s just such a dangerous situation,” said Lopata of Calabasas, whose mountainous community would be left with no fire protection on its rural west end.